There are only a few business people who are willing to try something new. This isn’t to be negative, it’s just a fact. Statistically we are mostly wired to be risk-averse and go with the flow.

But in business, if you are the one standing in the doorway, saying, “You go first,” then you will soon find that the door is closed and you can’t enter in.

The ‘Just Add Water’ Initiative is a way for oil producers, land owners, growers, and environmentalists to walk through the door to a better future of water in the West. Cleaning the oilfield by-product water and applying it on the ground for ag and conservation introduces a new source of water to the arid land with staggering benefits:

o Soil health improves.

o Carbon is pulled from the air.

o Vegetation grows.

o The aquifer is protected.

o Growers increase.

All of that happens if you ‘Just Add Water.’

But you have to walk through the door. Holding it open for others won’t do you any good. Thoughts on this?

When we began to advocate to take oilfield by-product water, clean it up, and apply it on the land for ag and conservation, we kept hearing – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Okay, they didn’t really say it like that.

They said things like, “This is very interesting.” “Well, if you can make that work, that’d be good.” “You keep at it and let us know how it’s going.” But no one really took it seriously.

That was then.

Today, we have proposals in for 5 projects across 3 states. Legislation in multiple states are wanting to see an alternative to injection of by-product water become real. The tide has shifted and it’s coming in.

And it’s coming in hard.

We encourage all stakeholders to take a second look at this. Own land? Work at an oil company? Grow things for a living? Make policy? We need to talk.

The system is broken, unfriendly to the environment, and keeps the dry lands of the West dry.

The ‘Just Add Water’ Initiative is a joint project of Encore Green Environmental, Beneficial-Use Water Alliance, and the University of Wyoming’s Center of Excellence in Produced Water Management.

We are interviewing a number of experts about how adding water onto the land of the arid western states changes everything.

So, we thought we’d start with an interview with some vegetation. Now, we know plants don’t talk. But if they could, it’d go something like this:

INTERVIEWER: Thank you speaking with us today . . . uh, do you have a name?

PLANT: I’m just a plant.

INTERVIEWER: Is your first name Robert? Get it? Robert Plant?

PLANT: I don’t get it.

INTERVIEWER: Never mind. Can you tell us what you like to do in your spare time?

PLANT: I don’t have spare time. I spend all day taking in sunshine, releasing oxygen, and sequestering carbon dioxide.

INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us more about this sequestering thing?

PLANT: Underground, my roots and the surrounding soil love carbon. I mean, really love carbon. So, above ground we pull in carbon dioxide and so we can lock it away in the roots and soil.

INTERVIEWER: So, you’re like nature’s vacuum cleaner.

PLANT: I don’t get it.

INTERVIEWER: Never mind. So, you have fun all day sequestering carbon?

PLANT: When I get to, yes. But because I’m a plant in the arid western states, we don’t have much water. Without water I can’t do much. My leaves turn brown. I wilt and there’s not much sequestering of carbon going on.

INTERVIEWER: So, you support The ‘Just Add Water’ Initiative?

PLANT: Yes! All of plants do. Even the trees are getting in the action. Everything changes when you add water. I grow. I sequester carbon. And I can achieve major conservation goals. But you gotta give me water.

So, that’s what the vegetation thinks. What do you think? We’d love to hear from you.

While it may at first sound like what your mechanic does with the carburetor, Carbon Sequestration is actually a natural process that vegetation does as part of being vegetation. It’s in the plant’s job description.

At Encore Green Environmental, we are spreading info about Carbon Sequestration as part of The ‘Just Add Water’ Initiative. Carbon Sequestration is our future here in the oil producing states in the arid west and so we all need to be up to speed.

Here’s the quick version:

Vegetation naturally has a process called photosynthesis. You remember that from your science books, right? Plants use sunshine and water to do two things.

o They give off oxygen, which is very handy for us humans.

o AND they pull in carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon goes down into their roots and surrounding soil and is ‘sequestered,’ which is another way of saying it gets locked away in the roots and soil.

So, it’s a very natural process that’s as old as dirt (and plants). Why do we care?

Because scientists are on record saying we need to get carbon out of our air for the sake of our environment. But, here in the ARID states, we don’t have much vegetation because we don’t have much water. So, we don’t have much Carbon Sequestration.

That’s where The ‘Just Add Water’ Initiative comes in.

Encore Green Environmental has a patent-pending process to take oilfield by-product water, clean it up to match the soil, and apply to the land, causing vegetation to grow. And, as you now know, vegetation creates Carbon Sequestration, which improves our environment.

No, not RFD. RFP. We have a Request for Proposal to send to any of you who are in the oilfield by-product water cleaning business. We have multiple projects in Wyoming, Texas, and New Mexico. Ideally, you have an on-site water cleaning unit that can handle 5,000 or more barrels a day.

Is that you? Give a shout because we’re on the move. There’s been a lot of talk about better solutions instead by-product water injection. We’re done talking and are looking for the right technology to move forward. Just Add Water – a new initiative to change our world.

Our view of a scientist is too limited. Sure, we picture an absent-minded genius in a lab coat standing before a blackboard filled with mathematical equations. Or we picture an Ivy League science lab with multi-million-dollar equipment, expanding theoretical horizons. We see science is something that is limited to the chosen few who live sequestered in the ivory tower. We believe that their science is true. They are at an east or west coast university and, well, they wear those lab coats and use big words. So, their scientific pursuits must be real. And there’s plenty of women and men like this, doing great work.

But we have discovered among some communities, especially those dealing with our environment, that these lab coated, Ivy League scientists are the only ones to be believed. Instead, at Beneficial-Use Water Alliance and Encore Green Environmental, we know that science is science.

In contrast to these images of the absent-minded professor, there’s an army of brilliant scientists, working in the real world of agriculture who conduct both theoretical and applied sciences to the field of agriculture and agronomy.

And at every meal, we enjoy their success. See, once upon a time, a grower was fortunate to grow enough for just his family. In the 1930’s the farmer could feed 4 people. By 1960, a farmer fed 26 people. Now, thanks to the theoretical and applied work of ag scientists, one grower feeds 155 people. This isn’t because we have better tractors – it’s because ag science has improved.

We are pleased to work alongside brilliant men and women who lead us to make sure that all policies and procedures are grounded in science. Expand your mind. Drop your prejudices. Put on some boots and go do science in the dirt.

We’re having a lot of discussion about our lands, our energy, and our environment. But we’d like to call on the quieter member of our group here today. Yes, you in the back. Speak up!

See, we haven’t heard from Agriculture too much in the midst of the near-constant duality of environmental concern vs. need for affordable energy. The American growers have just been sitting in the back, doing what they do best: grow things and mind their own business.

They put up with unreliable weather, political maneuvering, a fickle consumer, and a lot of long, hard days to give us a myriad of food choices at the supermarket. But we haven’t asked them to stand up in our forum to talk about energy and environment very much.

The Beneficial-Use Water Alliance is here to change that.

See, Agricluture knows more about land than the rest of us. They live on it and earn a living from it. Most every grower is the latest in a long line of ancestral growers. It’s in their blood.

So, let’s ask Agriculture what they think about all this, since every day for generations they have been the best stewards for our land and environment. Their track record speaks for itself. Agriculture always takes care of the land.

Industry’s track record is not so great. In the past, Industry has been known to compromise sometimes on stewardship of the land to keep the wheels of industry turning. They care about the land, but only as a means to an end.

The Environmentalists care for the land, for sure. But, they too, are sometimes after a means to an end, as well. There’re some voices that want to wall off the land and make it a sanctuary we can only look at from afar or maybe go on a hike with special permitting.

Agriculture has proved they take the middle position. We need to use the land to benefit people, but we also must do it responsibly.

It’s the middle way. The way of the land. The way we can all go forward. Want to talk about it? Leave a comment or give Beneficial-Use Water Alliance a call or email: 818.470.0285, director@beneficialusewateralliance.com.

If the number of conferences and money spent on technology research is an indication, then stopping climate change is a priority. Some shrug it off; some are impassioned about it. But we don’t have to give more grants or fund more technology. We only have to let Mother Nature do what Mother Nature knows how to do – she’s pretty smart actually.

A major task for climate change researchers is how to get rid of the carbon in the air. They tell us that too many cars and other carbon emitting objects and systems, have put too much of Carbon into the air.

But relax, Mother Nature’s got this.

You see if you were to grow more vegetation and trees, then those living things do what they inherently do: They give off Oxygen (which is handy for us humans) and they absorb Carbon. They pull the carbon into the plant and then lock it away in the root system and surrounding soil. They get rid of Carbon for us.

What’s our job? We only have to grow more things. And conveniently (don’t you love it when a plan comes together?), just where you have lots of arid land that can’t grow things, you have billions of gallons of water nearby. And one of Mother Nature’s principles is that if you add water to dirt, you can start growing things. And getting Carbon out of our air.

Mother Nature has this covered. Using Conservation By-Design, we can take this oilfield by-product water, clean it up, and apply to the arid land and start growing things, creating carbon cleaners.

Let’s quit re-inventing the wheel and, instead, use the principles that Nature already has in place.

When it comes to figuring out what to do with oilfield by-product water, there’s lots of questions. The answer to all of them is soil – which is dirt that has found a purpose in life. You see, dirt is all around us, and in most areas where oil is being pumped, the dirt is not encumbered with buildings and concrete. But in the major oil-producing states, that land is arid. So, you have dry dirt that can’t do much.

But since you have millions of gallons of by-product water coming out of these oil wells, the obvious solution is to clean that water and put it on the ground to make that dirt do what it’s made to do: grow things.

We say the solution is obvious, but it historically has been anything but that. Marvin Nash, the creator of Conservation By-Design, which is the method to transform industrial by-product water for agriculture and conservation, worked for over three years with an E&P company, fulfilling the usual method of “disposing” of by-product water, which is a nice way to say throwing the water away.

It was only a passing comment from someone about wishing there was a way to re-use this water, that Marvin’s thoughts went to alternate solutions. After he left the oil company, he realized the answer was right in front of him – or, actually, beneath his feet.

Soil is the answer. Put water on it and you grow things. You heal the dirt. You stop erosion. You grow productive things. You get rid of CO2 in the air. And you don’t inject dirty water back into the ground. All these benefits are because you add some water to the soil.

The answer is soil. Let us design a solution for you. Give a call 818.470.0285.

At Encore Green Environmental, we have been collecting white papers and scientific data that shows how carbon sequestration – which is just saying we remove carbon from the air – can be accomplished best through Nature’s own “technology,” photosynthesis. If you like to read scientific papers, here’s a link where you can read “Why Not Soil Carbon?” and others. If you don’t like scientific papers, stay tuned. We’ll be having resources for you as well!